about CaringBridge  |  home page  |  view guestbook  |  view photos  |  read journal history  |  make a tribute donation
 
 

Simone's Web Page



"Simone and Jeremy at Chez Panisse June 2005"





This beautiful song was composed for Simone by Andy Haller...

3/11/05 Newest Slide show from Lisa Burlini just posted - October 2004 - January 2005

Updated Slide Show - from Simone's 8th Grade Graduation to her 15th Birthday!
by Lisa Burlini


Photo Slide Show from February 2004-May 2004 Updated 5/23/04
by Lisa Burlini

January 2004 Photo Slide show - by Lisa Burlini




Please sign Simone's guestbook - It's more like a message center, so you can sign as often as you like. She reads it every day and loves hearing from everyone!

~ 2/21/04: Thank you for writing in my guestbook. Each time when I read the messages it makes me happy. I love knowing the people who care about my life who I never knew before. Spinal taps are a pain "in the butt" but I only have two more this month! Thank you for helping me get through this.
Love,
Simone ~



A NOTE FROM SIMONE, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 2004

Cancer is really hard to explain, and no one who hasn't gone through it can understand what it is. I'm tired of being tired and not being able to do what I want to do. Thank you for all the notes, support and the gifts. Each gift brings a smile to my face and each card or any other big or little thing makes me happy. It makes me feel happy that so many people care, and it makes me feel protected that I have people around me to help. I want everyone to know each time I receive a letter or package or something it makes me feel happy and helps me get through the cancer treatments. Thank you for being on my side.
Love,
Simone

P.S. Thank you for writing in my guest book. I like reading the entries. Or my parents read them to me when I am too tired, and they make me feel happy.
Love,
Simone


Simone's Mailing Address:



Simone Weinstein

2308 Chesterton Dr

Walnut Creek, CA 94596





Click Logo to Donate

to Children's Hospital

Through the KFRC

Kids Radiothon






This website will provide you with the most current information available about Simone Weinstein.



This page contains only the most current update - please see the History page for all prior updates.














 
 
  "Over the Rainbow" - Listen
"The Rose" - Listen

For Simone from Rachel Mazer 








Saturday, ~ February 29, 2004 ~

~ A few words from Simone about courage ~

Listen:



May you and your family continue to feel held and supported on this journey


Healing Circle at Temple Isaiah in Lafayette, CA for Simone and ALL in need of healing ~ January 10, February 28, March 20, April 24, May 8, June 12, and August 21, 2004







This blanket was a gift from Ben Holtz
of the 101st Airborne upon his safe return from Iraq








For Debby.... "Oh Guide My Steps" Sung by Cantor Chanin Becker



Journal

Simone Jul-Aug 2010 update


When I started writing this month's update, I sadly realized that, although it was then the middle of the summer with Simone home, I would finish the update parting from Simone once again as we brought her back to school.

This year has just flown by, hasn’t it? The other day a colleague pointed to a January 2010 cutoff date and said we still have plenty of time.

On July 3, Debby, Simone, Veronica (my niece here for her annual summer visit) and I went to see our great friends the Hirsts in Davis. Their middle child, Rachel, has graduated from high school and will be joining her older sister Caroline at UCLA this fall. As usual we had a wonderful time. After eating we played the hat game. Everyone writes names of historical figures, celebrities, fictional characters, and even each other on slips of paper, which are put into a hat for three rounds. In the first round, the person drawing the slip can say anything but the name in order to get the other players to guess. The names are all put back in the hat for the second round, in which the person drawing can only use two words to get the group to guess. And, the third round is charades. We also brought the dance game Simone had been playing for their Wii videogame console and were entertained by the floor show of everyone trying it.

Simone's boyfriend Mark effectively moved in with us for several weeks while his parents were away (his dad now works in Florida), and it was very nice to have him around. Mark interned in my office a couple of days a week, mostly helping my secretary Angela with filing and other office tasks. He also got a few drumming gigs, which Debby and Simone (and Mark’s mom, when she was in town) went to see. On July 4, Mark manned the barbecue and he and Debby made a delicious Fourth of July feast. On July 5, Mark, Debby, Simone, Moriah and I went to the Alameda County fair, where Moriah was very well behaved as we visited the prize animals, saw the giant model railroad, and ate too much junk food.

Debby did summer reading with Mark, with the two of them agreeing on a book and then reading it and discussing it. Their first selection was Abraham Lincoln Vampire Slayer, which Debby loved, then The Man Who Was Thursday, which they also both liked a lot. They next tried Tom Wolfe's Man in Full, which Debby could get into, but Mark couldn't, so they switched to Our Man in Havana, which Mark read, but which Debby could never get underway. Now they are reading The Poe Shadow.

Simone continued to love her two day a week internship at Anthropologie. She worked very hard, often starting at 7am. Meanwhile, Martin, an animation director whom some of you may remember gave us a tour of the Laika Studios in Portland a couple of years ago, called to give Simone an internship at his studio, in Hunter’s Point in San Francisco, also for two days a week. She did a trial drive down to the studio the day before she started, and ran into Martin walking around, who gave her a tour of the studio. On her first day, she picked up Martin, who does not drive, at the Ferry Building, where the two of them had a leisurely breakfast, Simone “having a cinnamon roll and chocolate croissant, that were the perfect size. I then drove Martin to the studio. Martin said he was impressed at how calm I was driving in a completely unfamiliar area and talking at the same time. We got there and Martin made me a latte, and it was delicious. He showed me how to clean out the coffee machine, so I could do it. I put my purse next to Martin's desk and he ran around frantically the way he does, and he said ‘Simone sweep,’ so I did, and it took me an hour. Before people came he showed me how they mold things. I had to take out a huge molding case, and I said ‘I can't do it, because I'm weak,’ and he said ‘you can do it, say you're strong, you're a strong woman.’ I filled molds to create legs and heads and trees. Then people came and we had lunch at the catering place next door that feeds the whole area that's set up like a Tiki hut. They had delicious enchiladas. Then one of the interns taught me how to sculpt and create a metal sculpture of what I am going to be sculpting. I am sculpting a pug to learn how to sculpt. That's what I did all day, I sculpted a pug. They were impressed at how quickly I picked it up.” Martin had her show the other interns her Minnie tattoo, and over the course of the summer Simone related many interesting conversations and interactions with the other animators and interns. She showed us photos of her pug in progress, which she described in great detail with a lot of illustrative hand gestures, and told us other tales of life at the studio, including picking up extremely realistic eyeballs from an “amazing” artist who makes fake eyes.

Simone was on the board of a group of teen cancer survivors who organized a big project of a day of activities for survivors who were treated at Children’s Hospital. Simone had advocated for holding the event in June rather than July, so fewer people would be out of town. She also advocated for more group discussion activities rather than craft activities, and having the event be three hours rather than five hours, as teens who had cancer as teens have a very different approach to their survivorship than do teens who had cancer when they were two years old, but was overruled on all points. But she ended up making the most of the day and having a fine time, and it’s likely they will implement her ideas next year. 25 survivors from 15 to 20 years old participated.

Simone did more exercises for her “broken arm,” which is her left arm that has had impaired mobility since chemo, and set as her goal to have it be normal by the tine she has a child. She says she is very lucky this is her only remnant as many people have much worse, and no one notices it if she doesn't tell them about it. Simone also had her periodic oncology appointment at Children’s, seeing Dr. Golden who was very sweet and happy to see her. Simone has to have an ekg, because one of the medicines can cause heart problems, next year on her five year anniversary.

My nephew James was here for his annual visit when we celebrated Moriah's nineteenth birthday; we went to Carmel. The weather was nice, not too cold, and we had a lovely day on the beach and walking the Carmel Mission trail. James also took a week course of blacksmithing lessons in Berkeley. I took him into SF on a beautiful Saturday, and we had lunch at Tadich Grill, James having a plate of oysters, and then we went to City Lights bookstore, where I bought James a copy of Howl and we then checked out the new Beat Museum, which was cool but it made me feel very old.

Later in the summer Aaron arrived for his week with us. He is not quite taller than I am, but he will be by next summer. We introduced Aaron to Alfred Hitchcock movies, starting with Rear Window, and when he decided he really liked Alfred Hitchcock, we followed up with Rope, Lifeboat, Strangers on a Train, and Spellbound, all masterpieces that he really enjoyed. He and I also watched the Three Musketeers and the Four Musketeers from 1974, with Raquel Welch and Faye Dunaway- I really enjoy watching movies with him that I first saw in the theater when I was his age. We all had a nice dinner out at Bridges; I had just ratted Veronica out to my sister for an innocently inappropriate facebook picture V had posted, and we debated that over dinner. For our day together in San Francisco, Aaron and I had a lovely lunch at Tadich grill, also sharing a plate of delicious oysters. We went to the Jewish Contemporary Museum, which Aaron really liked and absorbed. The next day Debby, Simone, Aaron and I went to the Pixar exhibit at the Oakland museum, which was terrific, especially a movie on a huge screen of the story boards. Simone had just gotten a tour of Pixar itself from her Anthropologie supervisor Asoki's husband. Aaron and I then went bookshopping at Shakespeare and Co and Moe’s in Berkeley, while the girls shopped on Fourth street to consume the last days of Simone's Anthroplplgie employee discount. Aaron picked out lots of books on Judaism. Then he and I had a nice meal at Henry’s in the Durant hotel, and the girls picked us up.

Simone, Debby, Mark and I took a trip to Seattle. We ate at a lot of great places, including Lola, a donut place called Top Pot, Dalia's, metropolitan grill, all of which Debby picked up from Food Network shows. We went to the Seattle art museum, studying an installation in the main hall that is of cars hanging from the ceiling with glowing light rods coming out of them- perhaps representing a crash. The Museum had an Andy Warhol exhibit, which included a photo both where people, which included Simone and Mark, took their photos to posted on a board. Simone liked that the upcoming Picasso exhibit started on her 21st birthday, Oct 8. Other museums we enjoyed included the Music Experience and the Science Fiction Museum. Walking around, we passed a jewelry store with a giant diamond ring hanging out front, and before we knew it, Simone had made a beeline inside. They had a book on creative proposals, and I took one for Mark. One evening we took a cab out to the Archie McPhee store. Simone was clearly nauseated and she and the others left to go to a donut store. I bought "ultimate nerd pens," which include a laser pointer and uv light, for each of Mark and I, absinthe flavored dental floss, inflatable van Gogh art in a can, dental mirrors, and a toilet squirter, among many other goodies. We went to a great dinner around the corner at a place called Bizarro. While waiting for our table, I gave Mark the nerd pen, and we had fun bothering Debby with the laser pointers and other toys, which was abbreviated by a large-scale confiscation. After dinner, we went to the Elliot Bay Book Company..

Om other miscellaneous news, Debby, Simone and I went to the impressionist show at the DeYoung Museum in San Francisco, and saw Whistler's Mother. Simone got yet another new purse on the shopping following the viewing, and modeled it joyfully on arriving home. Debby got a cage for downstairs for new guinea pig Buster so he wouldn't be lonely. He is a very happy guinea pig and really loves Debby, often jumping up and down and making guinea pig noises when he hears her voice. In other pet news, one Sunday evening we came across Daphne the snake on the floor of our bedroom, heading into our bathroom, so she has clearly figured out how to escape her terrarium.

After returning home from visiting us, my niece Veronica went to a roller derby camp, and her stage name, suggested by her dad, was Prim Reaper. She did a terrific job and sent us a video of her kicking butt as the “jammer.”

Debby's mother died. They had been estranged, but Debby was pretty sad.

Simone's friend Lauren, who was featured with Simone in the USA today article on group loop support for teen cancer, has set a date for her wedding, next June 25, and Simone plans to attend.

One of the classes Simone is taking next semester is film music. In the spirit of that class, we watched Hangover Square, a 1940s Fox Studios horror movie that has a brilliant Bernard Hermann score which Simone loved.

Simone's self portrait collage was selected for framing and display in the Whittier President’s office.

Simone went to Disneyland with Debby for an early celebration of her upcoming 21st birthday. Debby's was so happy with her airport parking space that she took photos, but because she was so busy taking those pictures, she ended up forgetting her kindle. Simone’s current plan is to go to Disneyland’s Club 33 for her 21st birthday itself next month, and there order her very first (“legally” ordered) alcoholic beverage.

Love,
Jeremy






Read Journal History


Sign and view the guestbook
Sign and View Guestbook

View personal photos

View Photos

Hospital Information:

Patient Room: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~




Links:

  



  
  


 

E-mail Author: jeanetteg2@mac.com

 
 

  Celebrate someone you love with a Tribute Gift to CaringBridge

Your gift will help millions of people stay connected with friends and loved ones during challenging times.


 

This page has been viewed 13349 times.

 

Note: The foregoing information was authored by the patient, parent or guardian, or other parties who are solely responsible for the content. Such announcements or their content are not necessarily endorsed by CaringBridge, Inc. or any sponsoring agent. This information does not confirm that anyone is or was actually a patient at any facility.
 
 
Copyright Policy  |  Privacy Policy  |  Terms of Use  |  Donate |  How to Help |  Contact Us  |  FAQs
Copyright © 1997-2005 CaringBridge, a nonprofit organization. All rights reserved.
 
Visit the Onvoy website